Some Lewis and Clark Community College programs open to ‘out-of-district’ students

Brittany Johnson, bjohnson@civitasmedia.com

Published
9:25 pm CDT, Friday, April 7, 2017

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Some Lewis and Clark Community College programs open to ‘out-of-district’ students

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GODFREY — Students across the state may soon flock to a Riverbend community college in search of new academic opportunities.

Lewis and Clark Community College’s Godfrey campus recently welcomed a number of community colleges that made a decision to help promote academic programs throughout Illinois.

The Illinois Community College Board announced 39 districts within the state are to sign on for the Comprehensive Agreement Regarding Expansion of Educational Resources, coined CAREER Agreement, making all specialized programs that each college offers available to students throughout the state.

LCCC Vice President of Academic Affairs Linda Chapman said now students can apply and enroll in available classes with no regard to tuition fees being “out-of-district” — a geographical designation for students who live out of a college’s enrollment area. Essentially the community colleges are sharing their specialized career and technical education (CTE) programs in order to provide students access to programs that are unavailable in their home district.

“The programs that are most popular are probably the most costly to maintain,” Chapman said. “Colleges can only have so many because they have to invest so much into the programs. This includes proper equipment and employing qualified instructors all to hold the program to professional accreditation standards.”

Chapman noted that students from other districts already are interested in some of LCCC’s top specialized programs, including occupational therapy, dental hygienic studies and nursing.

“It’s amazing in this era that innovation continues to develop and scale up across the state,” she said. “Educators continue to find the best ways they can, with the limited money from the state, so that students can still benefit in a variety of opportunities. It’s a positive sign of the vitality of higher education in Illinois.”

Chapman said LCCC signed on to participate years ago, when Illinois Community College Board first made such an announcement.